Undeniable
by ILikeShorts
Summary: Morty/Whitney - She's calling him and interrupting his training and wasting his time, and somehow, he's not as annoyed as he should be.


**resistance ****_n. _**_an unwillingness to bring repressed feelings into conscious awareness_

* * *

**Undeniable**

* * *

Morty doesn't like shopping. He doesn't like Goldenrod much, either. It's too loud and too busy, and he's never been fond of big cities. But it does have an impressive selection of Pokémon items, so he makes the odd trip to the Department Store from time to time.

He's just stepping out of the elevator when a vaguely familiar voice calls his name. It's Whitney, Goldenrod's Gym Leader. He doesn't talk to her often. He doesn't really know her at all. But she's talking to him now, and she wants to exchange phone numbers.

It'll be fun, she says. They can talk about Pokémon. It'll be cool to have another Gym Leader to talk to. She talks to the trainers at her gym all the time, but being a leader is different and sometimes they just don't get it.

He doesn't see the harm in exchanging numbers with Whitney, so he does. He'll probably never call her, anyway.

* * *

He shouldn't have done that.

He never should have given Whitney his number. And he really should have said something to discourage her the first time she called, when she talked for over an hour about nothing in particular and then told him they should do this more often.

He didn't think she meant _this_ often. She calls him to talk about anything and everything. And he doesn't want to be rude, but in all honesty, he doesn't care much about any of it.

He doesn't care, for instance, which of the other Gym Leaders are in serious need of a makeover, as Whitney puts it. He's not on that list, as it happens. She makes sure to assure him of that, though he wouldn't care even if he was. He actually _was _on that list, she tells him, back when he always wore that ugly blue sweater and he really needed a haircut, but not now. She likes the way he dresses. Especially the scarf. It's cute. It reminds her of a Misdreavus, which is totally the cutest ghost Pokémon, and how come he doesn't get one?

He can't believe that a Gym Leader, of all people, would suggest he use a Pokémon based solely on how cute it is. But Whitney likes cute, as he's now very much aware. _He's_ cute, she says, and he doesn't quite know what to make of this, because he's never thought of himself as _cute _before. It's the sort of thing only Whitney would say.

And only Whitney would finally hang up and then call back less than ten seconds later because she forgot to tell him about the new record she set at the Pokéathlon the day before.

He doesn't care about the Pokéathlon. It's a pointless diversion, and he doubts it would add much to his training, if anything at all. But Whitney doesn't care that he doesn't care (she never does, he's beginning to realize) and she tells him all about it. It's fun. She just moved up to the Supreme Cup (the best one, she says) and she thinks he should try it, too.

Whitney thinks a lot of things. He knows this better than anyone, because she calls him almost every day now, sometimes more than once. And he, perhaps unfortunately, gets to hear about them all.

She thinks he trains too much. He's always training when she calls him. He doesn't know how she manages to train enough. She's always at that store. He thinks she's been there at least four times this week (there's nothing to do, and she's bored, she says), and he wonders why she doesn't just go back to her gym and train. That's what he would do. She shouldn't be a very good Gym Leader, with all the time she spends at the Department Store and the Pokéathlon Dome (not to mention calling him incessantly), but she is. He knows this because the trainers who challenge him tell him stories of her impossibly powerful Miltank, and he asks her how she does it. She thinks there's more to Pokémon than training.

Then he overhears one of the mediums at his gym mumbling something about young folks, always glued to their Pokégears, and he tells her he has to go. And, as always, she calls him again later.

* * *

If you ask Whitney, Attract is one of the best moves a Pokémon can learn. She says it's perfect for her to use because she's cute, and he's amused by how matter-of-factly she states this. Then he reminds himself that this is the same person who calls herself The Incredibly Pretty Girl, and he wonders what self-respecting Gym Leader would choose to go by such a title, but of course she would. He supposes she gets away with it because it's true, although he thinks it would make more sense to highlight her type specialty or something of the sort, because it's not as though being incredibly pretty (which she is, but that's irrelevant) has anything to do with Pokémon battles.

She thinks they should have a battle, just for fun. He thinks this actually could be fun (not _fun_, he corrects himself, _practical_) because their Pokémon would resist most of each other's attacks and he'd need to develop a strategy to get around that. Then she mentions that her Miltank has the rare ability to hit ghosts, and she wishes she hadn't told him that, because it's so much better when they have no idea what's coming. She can't wait to see the look on his face when she makes his Gengar flinch. And he's curious, and a little impressed, because no one—not in all his years as a Gym Leader—has ever managed to do _that_.

He'd like to battle her, he says, and she sounds surprised. Possibly because he's never expressed much of an interest in anything she's ever called him about before. He's not sure why she bothers to call him at all. But Whitney is persistent, he supposes. Or just oblivious. Or maybe even both.

She thinks he should come to Goldenrod again sometime so they can hang out in person. She wants to take him to the Game Corner because they have this TM she's just dying to have, but she can't figure out their stupid Voltorb game no matter how many times she plays. The last time she was there she tried for hours, and then she asked the dealer guy how many coins she'd won and he said twelve and she kind of sort of threw a fit and they told her maybe it'd be best if she didn't come back there ever again. But she knows this would never happen to him because he has those awesome seer powers, and why doesn't he go to the Game Corner and use them to win? And he points out that if he did that, they'd probably tell him not to come back, either.

She laughs. And he realizes, with some surprise, that he's laughing too.

* * *

His Pokégear rings in the middle of a battle. It's only for practice, so he answers without hesitation, and his opponent, one of the more outspoken mediums, stares at him in astonishment. He used to put his training before everything else. But lately, he's on the phone all the time.

It's Whitney again. She thinks Gengar and Clefairy kind of look alike. He doesn't know _what _to say to that, because Clefairy is pink and cute and Gengar is definitely not either of those. But she says they're the same shape and they kind of have the same ears, but then, Gengar's a ghost and it has those scary red eyes, and then again, maybe they don't look that much like each other after all.

And that's when it hits him. This needs to stop. She calls him, often for no apparent reason, and he answers. He's grown accustomed to it. He almost doesn't even mind it. She's calling him and interrupting his training and wasting his time, and somehow, he's not as annoyed as he should be.

Whitney's a distraction, he reminds himself. He shouldn't be taking so many calls from her, and he certainly shouldn't find himself enjoying them. He should be focusing on his training, and right now especially, because Ho-Oh's been captured and he doesn't know what his future is anymore and at least if he trains enough there's a chance he might figure it out.

He could tell her to stop calling. But that wouldn't work. She'd never listen. Or she might even start to cry, and everybody knows not to make Whitney cry because then she'll throw a tantrum that's decidedly un-cute (and he knows he must be talking to Whitney far too often if words like _un-cute_ have somehow crept into his vocabulary) and near impossible to stop. You just have to wait until she gets tired of crying and calms down, and it's really not worth it unless you absolutely need a badge from her or something. He's heard countless stories about that, too.

There's just not much he can do. So when he hears that familiar ring yet again, he doesn't think twice. He simply raises his Pokégear to his ear, smiling in spite of himself, and asks The Incredibly Pretty Girl what she wants this time.

She thinks there's nothing prettier than Goldenrod at night, when the whole city comes to life and everything sparkles. He thinks it's nothing more than a meaningless array of flashing lights and neon signs, so he tells her about the Bell Tower, with its surrounding woods of red and gold and the history it holds. She makes him promise to take her there someday. And he does, because there's not much of a point in trying to say no to her, and it'll probably never happen, anyway.

But broken promises are unforgivable. At least, that's what she tells him. He doesn't think he necessarily agrees with that, but, as usual, he doesn't bother to argue.

* * *

Whitney just evolved her Clefairy. It was hard, because she practically grew up with it, and it was so cute. It's still cute as a Clefable—maybe not as cute as before, but it'll be stronger in battle and she knows being cute isn't the only thing that matters. He realizes she's not quite as immature as he thought. And he thinks that maybe he should buy her one of those Clefairy dolls (the original Poké Doll, they're everywhere), and then he doesn't know what he's thinking, because since when does he buy her things, anyway? And that would mean he _cared_.

Just because he talks to her every day doesn't mean that he cares. She's the one who keeps calling. He's not supposed to care. He's supposed to be training.

Training. It's all he's ever really done, if he thinks about it. Training to become stronger. Training to see further into the future. Training so that, one day, the legendary Ho-Oh would appear before him.

But Ho-Oh has been caught.

Caught, by Ethan, who had something more than just strength. Something Morty could never figure out. He could never train hard enough.

He tells her about it. He doesn't plan to, and he expects he'll come to regret it, because he's never quite this open about anything and there's probably a good reason for that, but she's so easy to talk to and the whole story comes tumbling out when she's telling him how she had a rematch with Ethan last week and he took out this weird Poké Ball she'd never seen before (a really pretty one, actually, all purple and white and pink) and out came the legendary Pokémon Ho-Oh, and how unfair was _that_?

So he tells her. How he trained all his life, and how Ethan just showed up at the Bell Tower one day and managed to not only summon Ho-Oh but also capture it. (And he'll be the first to admit that Ethan is a formidable Champion who fully deserves everything he's accomplished, but that doesn't mean he's not disappointed.) And how he trains so hard even now because, in truth, he doesn't know what else to do, and he hopes his training will help him find the answer.

Whitney thinks things are better this way. She just can't see the famous ghost-type Gym Leader fighting off challengers with a ginormous rainbow bird, and anyway, she doubts it would like his dark, creepy gym much.

He asks her if she's even been to his gym. She hasn't. She just figured it would be like that, knowing him, and doesn't he at least want to train somewhere nice where he can be happy? And Ethan didn't catch Ho-Oh and the rest of those legendary Pokémon by training in a gym fourteen hours a day, and maybe that's what his problem is.

At first, he's too shocked to say anything at all. And then he tells her (and it's the result of years of conducting himself with discipline and restraint that there's not the slightest hint of anger in his voice even now) that she doesn't know anything. Not about legendary Pokémon, and definitely not about him. And he doesn't want her to call him anymore. She's disrupted his training far too much already.

She tells him he's mean. He thinks she must be crying, or trying not to, because her voice sounds shaky in a way it never has before. And he tells himself not to worry about it because she's a distraction and she's wrong, and he's not about to let this interfere with his training.

But later, when he's training in his gym the same way he always does, leading his Pokémon through the same exercises time and time again, he thinks that maybe Whitney has a point.

* * *

Whitney doesn't call him anymore. It's for the best. He'll finally be able to focus on things at the gym again, and he has so much more time now, it seems. Perhaps too much time, but the work of a leader is never done, so it's not as though he can complain about it. And it's what he _wanted, _after all.

It's just not what he expected. When he told her not to call, it never occurred to him that she might actually listen. He thought, knowing Whitney, that she'd call back within the hour (within the next two minutes, even) to tell him how mean he was again.

But she's not calling, and he doesn't know what to make of this, so he does what he always does when he doesn't know what else to do. He trains.

But Ethan didn't catch Ho-Oh and the rest of those legendary Pokémon by training in a gym fourteen hours a day. Maybe that's what his problem is.

That's what she said to him. He can't get it off his mind.

_His problem_, she says. He doesn't have a problem. He thinks _she's_ the problem. He's distracted when she calls and he's distracted when she doesn't, which means that things will never get back to normal, and that's just _great_.

He can't concentrate on his training, so he thinks. About himself. About Whitney. About how he could have possibly let someone so annoyingly, overwhelmingly, unabashedly _cute_ get in the way of everything_._

He thinks he might actually miss her.

He thinks he might actually _like _her.

He thinks he should really stop thinking about this.

He can't.

* * *

Just as he's beginning to wonder if he'll never hear from her again, Whitney calls him. She knows he told her not to, but she's mad at him so she'll call him if she feels like it, and if he doesn't like that then that's too bad for him.

He doesn't quite follow her logic, but then again, he never could, so he just goes with it.

She wants to thank him for the Clefairy doll. She loves it. It's so cute, and she's never had one before. She never needed one because she always had a real Clefairy, but now that her Clefairy is a Clefable forever (and she loves her Clefable and it's so much stronger now, but she'll always miss the way it used to be), it's perfect. And she knows it must be from him because a Drifblim brought it to her, and normal people don't send mail with a Drifblim, they just use a Spearow or something.

He really should go catch a Spearow, one of these days.

He didn't _mean_ to give her the Clefairy doll. He just kind of bought it without thinking when he was shopping in Celadon one day. (He doesn't shop in Goldenrod anymore. It's not that he doesn't want to run into Whitney because of the things he said, because that wouldn't be very mature, and he's a responsible adult who is perfectly capable of facing up to things like that. He's just in Kanto a lot lately, ever since the Gym Leaders started using the Fighting Dojo to battle, so he might as well get his shopping done in Celadon because it's a nice change of scenery and they have most of the same things anyway.) And then he had no choice but to send it to her because it wasn't as though he had any use for it, and it was just sitting there and distracting him and making him think of _her_, so he had to get rid of it.

And he still thinks about her quite a lot, but at least that doll isn't staring him in the face anymore.

He tells her she can call him, if she wants. She tells him she has to go, because a bunch of kids just walked into her gym, and she doesn't think the Pokémon League would like it much if she started taking calls while facing challengers. She'll call him tomorrow.

She calls him an hour later. She's crying. Because she lost a battle, of all the possible reasons. He doesn't know what to say.

He tells her to stop. It's childish. It's annoying. It's not the way a Gym Leader should behave. And, if he's being honest with himself, hearing her so upset bothers him more than he's willing to admit. But he doesn't tell her that part.

She tells him, rather predictably, that he's mean, and hangs up.

* * *

He calls her back.

It's not because he can't stand the thought of her crying, and it's not because he regrets what he said. It's not even because the past few days have been the dullest days of his life, and he'd rather spend a week stranded in the Cerulean Cave than go through that again. It's just that it's very disrespectful, hanging up on someone like that, and he's not about to let her get away with it.

She answers after twelve rings—yes, _twelve_—and tells him she's busy. She's about to have another battle, and she really, _really_ (and he realizes as she says this that she's probably still crying) doesn't want to talk to him right now.

He tells her he doesn't care. She never cared whether he wanted to talk, so he's not going to, either. She's going to take the rest of the day off, and he's going to show her the Bell Tower. Because she won't battle well if she's upset, and the last thing he wants is a group of mediocre trainers showing up at his gym with far too much confidence because they happened to get lucky and win the Plain Badge while the leader was having an off day.

Besides. He promised. And broken promises are unforgivable, so he's been told.

She doesn't believe it. Isn't he supposed to be training? Of course he is. He always is. He probably is right now, and he's totally going to let her have it later for making him blow off his training to go hang out at some tower.

He tells her there's more to Pokémon than training.

She tells him she'll be there.

And when he takes her to the top of the Bell Tower that night, he realizes he truly does care about her after all.

It might even be more than that.


End file.
